Blogs/Web

The Strib Launches "The Jimmy 'Jim' Lileks Show Program"

Filed under: Blogs/Web

James Lileks is a busy man. Not only did the conservative-friendly blogger and radio personality find time to pen a hard-hitting column for us, dude’s got his own internet “show program” at the Strib called “The Jimmy ‘Jim’ Lileks Show Program.” (We’re being told that the show is actually hosted by his twin brother “Jimmy.” Okay, fine, we’ll play along.)

In this, the premiere episode, Jimmy attends an art show in Edina in search of that timeless, elusive enigma. What is art? Watch it here. Disclaimer: we cannot reimburse you the four minutes of your life spent watching it.

Posted by Matt Snyders at June 17, 2008 12:56 PM | Comments (2)

 

Don't Google me! North Oaks, MN joins Russia and Nato in forcing action from the internet behemoth

Filed under: Blogs/Web

The residents of North Oaks, MN have successfully lobbied to have Google Maps remove images of their homes from the recently launched Google Street View feature. Turns out the good people of North Oaks (there are 4,500 of them) own their own roads and so that buggy looking Google-car committed the high-crime of trespassing when it trolled the quiet streets of North Oaks grabbing photos every which way.

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Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at June 2, 2008 11:03 AM | Comments (4)

 

Village Voice lampoons rightwing bloggers

Filed under: Blogs/Web

This week our sister paper, the Village Voice, published a hilarious guide to rightwing bloggers, and the list includes several notable Minnesotans.

First up is James Lileks, the Strib's wunderkind-turned-scaremonger:

JAMES LILEKS (The Bleat; lileks.com)

ORIENTATION: Suburbative

TONE: Nostalgic

FUN FACT: Briefly lived in Washington, D.C. (“where I heard every voice on the globe,” and also “the world’s crossroads of disease”), in a “blaring trash-strewn enclave” where he “lived in a constant state of nervous dread.” Currently resides in a house he calls “Jasperwood,” complete with “water feature” (i.e., fountain), in a Minneapolis neighborhood that he describes as “urban.”

CANDIDATE: Undeclared, leaning toward George Wallace

STUPID/EVIL RATIO: 60/40

HISTORY: Writer for various papers, including The Washington Post; longtime employee of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for whom he blogs and supplies columns. Books include humorous, affectionate tweakings of ads, recipes, and photographs from the mid-20th century, which also comprised the centerpiece of The Bleat when it started in 1997, along with scrupulous coverage of Lileks’s daily routine (dog-walking, conversations with daughter, unsatisfying encounters with store clerks). Conservative themes emerged tentatively at first, with grumpy-old-man swipes at graffiti (“When I see that thicket of cryptic squibbles plastered on a sign, I want to bring back the chain gang”) and Monica Lewinsky (“I no more care how she feels about Ken Starr than I care how Al Capone felt about Eliot Ness”). September 11 exacerbated these tendencies to an hallucinogenic degree. Predicted New York would be “nuked,” compared a Chock Full O’Nuts Coffee can to “an urn from Atlantis,” and imagined his daughter attacked by Osama bin Laden (“Give me a gun; show me the cave”) and feminists (“I cannot possibly think of any good reason to ever strike a woman, unless it’s the one in the uniform who wants to pry my daughter’s arms from my neck because the state has decided all men must leave the household for the good of the People”).

MODUS OPERANDI: The Bleat remained thick with such fist-shakings until the 2006 elections, which seem to have thrown Lileks for a loop. Now, he mainly weaves weird culture-war demurrers into his ripely worded chronicles of shopping and child-rearing. So far he’s been quiet about McCain and even Hillary, but he refers to Obama as “Cool Brother,” which, given his longstanding antipathy to The Boondocks, is dispositive. Also: “Hillary and Obama; put them together, and what do you have? White. Male.”

WHAT TO EXPECT: Long, maudlin reminiscences of Ye Olden Tymes (croquets lawns, village greens) contrasted with fantasies of the Brave New Worlds affected by Hillary (forced repatriations of girlchilds and slut-servicings of Bill) or Obama (forced integration of Target, Wal-Mart).

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Posted by Kevin Hoffman at April 15, 2008 10:18 PM | Comments (1)

 

The Twin Cities just got nerdier

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Can't resist the pull of a good torrent? Multi-table online poker with 32 screens at once? Well, roll over Sergei Brin and tell Al Gore the news, the Twin Cities are now home to America's fastest Internet connections.

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Posted by Jeff Shaw at April 3, 2008 1:10 PM | Comments (0)

 

Captain's Quarters R.I.P.

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Captain's Quarters, the influential right-wing blog run by Eagan resident Ed Morrissey, will soon cease to exist. Morrissey announced today that he'll be joining Michelle Malkin's Hot Air site as a writer at the end of this month. In five years of operating the site, Captain Ed became a darling of blog evangelist Hugh Hewitt and other conservative pundits. Lately Morrissey's been spreading hokum about the "coming Obama theocracy." Shudder! No word on whether Captain Ed will be required to keep that adorable moniker, or whether he will continue referring to his wife as the "first mate."

Posted by Paul Demko at February 25, 2008 3:22 PM | Comments (2)

 

Boy, Interrupted: One Man's Struggle With An Eating Disorder (Web Extras)

Filed under: City Pages , City Pages , City Pages

Eating disorders destroy lives, and new research suggests that men are affected in greater numbers than was previously assumed. This week, Kevin Hoffman tells the story of Jeremy, a 36-year-old man who has struggled with the illness for most of his life.

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Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 3, 2007 1:44 PM | Comments (29)

 

Scott Johnson, Problem Blogger: A Case Study

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Scott "the Big Trunk" Johnson, the Powerline blogger and TCF Bank bigwig, let it fly last month after KSTP-TV ran a story critical of his friend Rachel Paulose, the recently installed U.S. Attorney for Minnesota. In a long angry post entitled, "Bob McNaney, Problem Reporter: A Case Study," Johnson pilloried McNaney for his "hit piece" about Paulose's unusually pomp-filled swearing-in ceremony.

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Posted by Mike Mosedale at April 11, 2007 12:41 PM | Comments (1)

 

Kings of the blogosphere: Minnesota edition

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With more than a half million votes cast in 45 categories, two Minnesotans have walked away with top honors in the 2006 Weblog Awards. PZ Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (and former CP profile subject), won the Best Science Blog category for Pharyngula. James Lileks, Star Tribune columnist (and former CP profile subject), won Best Individual Blog for The Bleat.

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Posted by Mike Mosedale at December 19, 2006 3:31 PM | Comments (0)

 

Snatching ridicule from the jaws of defeat

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Rae Hart Anderson, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Minnesota state senate, got her 15-minutes of fame in the blogosphere this weekend. The reason? A rambling and poorly punctuated concession email in which she urged incumbent State Senator Satveer Chaudhary (DFL-Fridley), who is a Hindu, to convert to Christianity. "Pay attention...this is very important, Satveer," Anderson wrote. "Have you noticed Jesus for yourself...at some moment in time, yet??"

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Posted by Mike Mosedale at November 20, 2006 3:59 PM | Comments (0)

 

Another Blog Bites the Dust

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Over the years, critics of all stripes have faulted the media for its relentless and lurid focus on crime. The old adage about TV news--"If it bleeds, it leads"--is never invoked as a point of praise. To the contrary, the implicit point is that there are a lot more pressing problems that deserve serious scrutiny than the latest mugging or rape. You know, little things like the economy, foreign affairs and health care.The blogosphere, especially in the conservative realm, has provided a curious counterpoint to this principle. In Minnesota, no blog better exemplified that than Rambix and the Red Star.

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Posted by Mike Mosedale at October 12, 2006 12:04 PM | Comments (7)

 

MDE fires back at paid liberal bloggers

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Last week the liberal blogosphere criticized Minnesotademocratsexposed.com operator Michael Brodkorb for being paid by the Senate campaign of Mark Kennedy ($4583 per month) and the House campaign of Michele Bachmann (a one-time amount of $5500)while continuing to promote their candidacies and his supposedly independent website. The issue at hand was the fuzzy line between paid political consultant and unpaid blogger. Yesterday, Brodkorb fired back with a post revealing that at least seven liberal bloggers are being paid $1500 a month for at least the next three months by a group known as the Center for Independent Media through its New Journalist Program. Although Brodkorb tried mightily to link the Center to a known Democratic group known as Media Matters, the most direct connection he could make was that the Center for Independent Media rents space from Media Matters.

Nevertheless, Brodkorb's greater point, that more than a few in the liberal media are themselves paid to blog, bears greater disclosure. (For the record, I and other City Pages staffers are generally expected to contribute to the City Pages blogs as part of earning our salaries.)

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Posted by Britt Robson at October 3, 2006 11:24 AM | Comments (17)

 

Couch Pundit enters the world of web piracy

Filed under: Blogs/Web

It's the world's largest music and movies superstore, and everything in it is free--and illegal. Every month, some five billion illegal downloads are passed around the internet, and the entertainment industry sues several hundred people. CP blogger Steve Monaco spent six months among the cops and robbers chasing down the alleys of the great black market bazaar for this week's cover story, Forbidden Fruit.

Posted by Corey Anderson at September 5, 2006 5:37 PM | Comments (0)

 

PZ does it

Filed under: Blogs/Web

PZ Myers--a biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris--has been named the world's top science blogger by Nature magazine. According to the explanatory note, the magazine based the determination on the numer of links from other websites and blogs (as opposed to raw traffic data). By this measure, Myers' Pharyngula blew away the competition. What's more surprising yet is Pharyngula's prominent status in the general blogosphere: Number 179 out of a staggeringly large field of 46 million blogs. You can find out most of what you want to know about Myers by visiting Pharyngula. But if that leaves you hungry for some biographical tidbits, check out this profile I wrote for City Pages back in November.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at July 6, 2006 3:24 PM | Comments (0)

 

Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga to drink beer with local bloggers

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Popular progressive bloggers Jerome Armstrong (MyDD) and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, left, (DailyKos) will be bending elbows and signing books at a special Tuesday edition of Drinking Liberally on May 2. The co-authors of a new book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, will join the usual unsavories at the 331 Club in Northeast Minneapolis from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The confluence of local and national lefty bloggers is also rumored to be attracting the presence of Bitch Ph.D. and Pharyngula blogger PZ Myers.

 

UPDATE: Rew from Drinking Liberally has commented below that just Kos will be attending the festivities, and not Armstrong.

 

Posted by Corey Anderson at April 28, 2006 2:50 PM | Comments (3)

 

They Shoot White People, Don't They?

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How TV news blew the Uptown murder story and fueled an ugly frenzy on the web

Minneapolis Police spokesman Ron Reier is puzzled and more than a little peeved at the coverage of the murder of Michael Zebuhr. It's not hard to figure out why. Zebuhr, you recall, was the 25-year-old graduate student shot to death by a mugger while walking in Uptown on March 18. The level of fear and outrage that ensued was partly attributable to the fact that the crime occurred in a "safe" (read: white) neighborhood. And then there were some horrifyingly dramatic aspects tailor made for the tabloid treatment: Zebuhr was shot in front of his mother and sister and, evidently, didn't put up the slightest resistance when the thieves took his mother's purse.

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Posted by Mike Mosedale at April 6, 2006 10:59 AM | Comments (29)

 

Powerline: Tom DeLay "too liberal"

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Tom DeLay has been called a lot of things in his day, but John Hinderaker--an Apple Valley attorney, conservative pundit and contributor to the popular political blog, Powerline-- has broken new ground. In a post prompted by news of the Hammer's impending resignation from Congress, Hinderaker opines that DeLay "was an effective leader, albeit too liberal in recent years."

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Posted by Mike Mosedale at April 4, 2006 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

 

E-mails threatening blogger's family brings Minvolved to a halt

Filed under: Blogs/Web

This morning the blogger known as Mr. Sponge posted his last communique at the relatively new left-wing blog Minvolved, intimating a threat had been received concerning the safety of his wife and/or children. A letter from Sponge to Norwegianity blogger Mark Gisleson stated he received two e-mails from separate Hotmail accounts. The e-mails included Sponge's wife's name and her place of work and implications that the author would confront Sponge's wife or her boss about the content on Minvolved, a partisan but rarely inflammatory site. Matthew Martin, a fellow Minvolved contributor and blogger at MN Publius, is out of town and unable to respond to inquiries until April 4.

Partisanship seems to have taken a really ugly turn when the lives of one's family are threatened over policital commentary. Let's hope Sponge is successful in tracking down the odious troll behind these threats.

Posted by Corey Anderson at March 24, 2006 3:03 PM | Comments (2)

 

Blog Fight!

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Just when it seemed the chest-thumping and mud-slinging in local blogdom couldn't get much more overblown, a Twin Cities blogger has found himself on the receiving end of a libel suit believed to be the first of its kind in this area. Until last week, Michael Brodkorb was anonymous in his role as author of the Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog.

As the name suggests, the site specializes in unflattering news and rumor about DFLers. Last week Brodkorb, a former state Republican Party communications and research director, came forward after he and his site were sued by Blois Olson, a PR firm president, former Democratic campaign manager, and co-publisher of the Politics in Minnesota newsletter.

The gist of Olson's complaint is that in late December, Brodkorb published unsigned items at MDE that defamed Olson by suggesting he had criticized former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley's congressional campaign out of spite, because Rowley refused to sign on with Olson's PR firm, New School Communications. Olson's attorney, Steve Silton, claims Brodkorb's assertion is completely false and defamatory, and that Olson hasn't done campaign work since 1998.

So a lawsuit like this must stand to have a big impact on political blogging generally, and anonymously authored blogs in particular, right?

Well, maybe not. Some observers think the whole episode may say more about petty political resentments than either the First Amendment or the body of established libel law.

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Posted by at January 10, 2006 1:31 PM | Comments (0)

 

Wonkette leaves eponymous blog to write second book

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Ana Marie Cox, who posts at the popular political blog Wonkette, will be stepping down later this month after signing a second book deal. Her debut novel, Dog Days, was released today to favorable reviews. Cox's second book will apparently be a nonfiction dissertation on the next generation of political activists. Taking her place at Wonkette will be David Lat, a 30-year-old lawyer who used to pen the blog Underneath Their Robes. Lat wrote UTB anonymously until he was outed last November.

Posted by Corey Anderson at January 5, 2006 9:33 AM | Comments (0)

 

NYT on intervention and treatment for internet addicts

Filed under: Blogs/Web

If this kind of thing catches on, some bloggers we know will soon have more than just rent-hungry landlords to fear when the doorbell rings.

Posted by Steve Perry at December 1, 2005 9:58 AM | Comments (0)

 

The spellchecker as social critic

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Doug Henwood, editor/publisher of the fine Left Business Observer newsletter, sent this note to his mail list the other day:

The spell checker for Adobe's InDesign was stumped by the word "narcoticized," and suggested "Americanized" as an alternative.

Posted by Steve Perry at November 30, 2005 1:49 PM | Comments (0)

 

Mike Tice death watch, Week 3

Filed under: Blogs/Web

Like the wall posters that students hung during China's Cultural Revolution, the American novelty tee shirt is the place where we fight the ideological battles of our age.

Why go to high school when you can go to school high?

It's not a beer belly: It's a fuel tank for a sex machine.

Here we see the debate between American hedonism and the Puritan ethic played out in a public forum.

And so it surely marks a cultural turning point that there now exists a t-shirt that demands that the Vikings cashier the man who is now widely considered the least competent coach in the NFL. The creator of the "Fire Mike Tice" tee sells merchandise under the name "American Blue Voice," alongside a variety of Democratic sloganeering. (The Vikings field marshal prominently endorsed the nation's commander in chief during the last presidential election.)

While City Pages makes no product endorsements, Vikings fanatics should probably buy now. While it's unusual to replace an NFL coach midseason--and the Vikings assistants hardly seem like candidates for a promotion--few believe Tice will survive a 1-5 start. Hipsters, by contrast, may want to wait for clearance prices, before putting their t-shirt in cold storage. Like a fine bottle of port, the Fire Mike Tice slogan will likely mature into a rich vintage item, guaranteed to leave a taste of sweet irony with the faintest aftertaste of nostalgia.

Posted by Michael Tortorello at October 4, 2005 2:30 PM | Comments (0)